Michael Dell, CEO and Founder of Dell, said on Thursday, “We're decreasing our head count. It's declined in the past two quarters and it will decline again in the first quarter. And we will go past the 8,800 target previously discussed as we achieve everything that I'm outlining today."

The AP reports that 5,500 Dell jobs have been cut so far with 1,000 more cuts coming this quarter. However, Dell CFO Donald Carty does say that there has been an increase in frontline personnel like sales and customer support for a net reduction of 3,200 jobs so far.

Dell isn’t alone in cutting jobs; Motorola is having its own problem with profitability and too many mouths to feed. Motorola announced recently that it wanted to break into two companies in an effort to become more profitable.

Motorola announced today that it would cut an additional 2,600 jobs adding up to 10,000 jobs cut since the beginning of 2007. The reason for the job cuts is blamed in part on the poor sales of cellular phones. The layoffs are the first wave of a plan to save Motorola $500 million this year.

The Wall Street Journal quotes Motorola from a statement saying, “The work-force reductions are intended to make financial resources available for strategic business investment, while better aligning operational costs and expenses with business growth.”

Motorola is cutting jobs both abroad and at home, 354 of the jobs cut were in Plantation, Florida where handsets for use on WiMax networks were in development. The sad state of WiMax in the U.S. with Sprint continually postponing its Xohm rollout likely had an effect on those cuts.

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quote:…you create an innovative/quality product and run the business right and profits will come.

quote:The American "way of business" sucks…

quote: Prove it.... You are very inaccurate.

No, you are the one who is inaccurate and I’ll prove it. American companies do create an innovative and quality product, as shown by having the highest GDP than any other country in the world – nearly double that of its closest rival, China.

While I sympathize with job losses that temporarily add uncertainty to people’s lives, this is nothing more than a cycle due in part to a dynamic world economy. These people will find work, our economy will grow, and life will go on.If you look back to 1982, the national unemployment rate was 9.7%. Within 6 years unemployment was back down to 5.5%. In 1992 unemployment hit 7.5%, and within 4 years it was back down to 5.4%

To say “The American way of business sucks” is to say that the majority of the population sucks. Business exists to maximize the shareholder wealth. While this statement may seem insensitive to some, it is the American way of life. Some of the posts in this thread suggest that there needs to be some morality, or compassion that leads management in their decisions. To that I say: Where is the morality and compassion from the consumers that allow a small family owned business to go under because they shop at a discount super center.

The bottom line IS the bottom line for both business’ and consumers. Most people wouldn’t pay $4.00 for a gallon of gas when the station across the street is selling it for $3.75. Nor would most people stay at a job that paid $18/hr when they knew they could make $22/hr somewhere else.